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Essen,

28

June

2017

|

19:49

Europe/Amsterdam

Flex2Market allows back-up generators to tap into the electricity market

New offering by RWE Supply & Trading for proprietors of back-up generators

RWE’s Flex2Market box allows back-up generators to provide additional capacity to the grid and produce significant additional revenue. Units that guarantee the uninterrupted supply of power, e.g. to computing centres and hospitals, are retrofitted with remote control features for this purpose without exposing the operator to any risk - the asset is still ensured to be available in case of emergency.

Every back-up generator is already regularly tested for problem-free readiness by its proprietor. As deployment is usually limited to 15 hours a month by permit legislation the Flex2Market box allows electricity generated during trial runs and capacity available at other times to be marketed.

“Whoever has one or several back-up generators with a total capacity of over 1,200 kilowatts or 1,500 kilovolt amps at their disposal can market it for a profit using our box,” declares Claudius Beermann, who is in charge of the offering at RWE Supply & Trading’s Commercial Asset Management division. The box is used to control the assets to ensure that their capacity is at the ready and able to help stabilise the grid. This, in turn, is compensated for by the network operator.

“These units normally do nothing but provide insurance and generate costs - for instance when they are purchased and maintained. We want to optimise this capacity and market it in order to keep balancing power in reserve and cap load spikes,” Beermann explains. “We expect an additional 400 to 500 MW of such decentralised generation capacity to be commercially exploitable in Germany.”

Whereas large-scale power plants are urgently needed to maintain system stability on the transmission grid, controllable decentralised assets can also make an important contribution on the distribution grid that is beneficial to the network.